Do positive illusions foster mental health? An examination of the Taylor and Brown formulation.

The proposition recently offered by S. E. Taylor and J. D. Brown (see record 1988-16903-001) that positive illusions foster mental health has garnered considerable attention and acceptance. However, the significant theoretical and applied implications of their view for mental health require a critical evaluation of their argument. An examination of the logic and empirical evidence used to relate mental health to 3 key positive illusions (unrealistically positive views of the self, illusions of control, and unrealistic optimism) failed to substantiate Taylor and Brown's thesis. Further survey of more recent studies on positive illusions and mental health also failed to lend support to the Taylor and Brown generalization. Close consideration of several assumptions underlying the formulation raises further questions regarding their thesis. The present article concludes that it remains unproven that positive illusions foster mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The private practice of misleading deflection.

Responds to L. S. Brown's (see record 84-26142) references to and citations of the author's works regarding repressed memories. The author argues that there was nothing in the citations Brown mentions that would indicate that Loftus believed that therapists should be prohibited from believing clients' memory of abuse in any way. Loftus contends that Brown's misleading and inaccurate statements regarding her views deflect readers from the fact that individuals have suffered great losses due to adult offspring undergoing extremely suggestive therapies. Loftus also argues that Brown's use of incomplete quotations and invented or distorted personal communications fall short of scholarly standards and that misrepresentation of critic's views regarding suggestive therapies does not help clients, victims, and reputations of mental health professionals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The process and outcome of "adjustment" in the cancer patient: A reply to Taylor.

Comments on an article by S. Taylor (see record 1984-17824-001) that viewed successful adjustment by breast cancer patients as a function of their ability to generate a favorable slant or illusion regarding their situation and to modify their belief about the cause and course of their affliction as it unfolds. The importance of determining when patient adjustment processes begin to operate and of characterizing their time course within and between disease stages is stressed. It is argued that mental health should be distinguished from disease endpoints and that commonly accepted mental health criteria of adjustment are not necessarily equally valid in a physically ill population. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of O-glycosylated mucin on invasion and metastasis of HM7 human colon cancer cells

Mucinous colorectal cancers have a poorer prognosis than colorectal cancers which produce a low amount of mucin, but the exact mechanism is not well understood. The present study was undertaken to elucidate the possible mechanisms of invasion and metastasis of colon cancer cells producing high levels of mucin using mucin glycosylation inhibitor, benzyl-alpha-N-acetylgalactosamine. The binding activity of treated HM7 cells to endothelial leukocyte adhesion molecule (ELAM-1) was significantly decreased and fixed cell binding of MoAb SNH-3 and 19-9 (specific for sialyl Le(x) and sialyl Le(a), respectively) was also significantly decreased. Metalloproteinase activity in conditioned medium and invasion of matrigel-coated porous filters by treated HM7 cells were decreased. However, there was no difference between control and treated HM7 cells in terms of matrix protein binding. These results suggest that O-glycosylated mucin is important in the invasive and metastatic properties of HM7 human colon cancer cells.     

Inference of beliefs and emotions in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The present study compared 20 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease with 20 older controls (ages 69-94 years) on their ability to make inferences about emotions and beliefs in others. Six tasks tested their ability to make 1st-order and 2nd-order inferences as well as to offer explanations and moral evaluations of human action by appeal to emotions and beliefs. Results showed that the ability to infer emotions and beliefs in 1st-order tasks remains largely intact in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. Patients were able to use mental states in the prediction, explanation, and moral evaluation of behavior. Impairment on 2nd-order tasks involving inference of mental states was equivalent to impairment on control tasks, suggesting that patients' difficulty is secondary to their cognitive impairments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Terror management and religion: Evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience.

Terror management theory suggests that people cope with awareness of death by investing in some kind of literal or symbolic immortality. Given the centrality of death transcendence beliefs in most religions, the authors hypothesized that religious beliefs play a protective role in managing terror of death. The authors report three studies suggesting that affirming intrinsic religiousness reduces both death-thought accessibility following mortality salience and the use of terror management defenses with regard to a secular belief system. Study 1 showed that after a naturally occurring reminder of mortality, people who scored high on intrinsic religiousness did not react with worldview defense, whereas people low on intrinsic religiousness did. Study 2 specified that intrinsic religious belief mitigated worldview defense only if participants had the opportunity to affirm their religious beliefs. Study 3 illustrated that affirmation of religious belief decreased death-thought accessibility following mortality salience only for those participants who scored high on the intrinsic religiousness scale. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that only those people who are intrinsically vested in their religion derive terror management benefits from religious beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological resources, positive illusions, and health.

Psychological beliefs such as optimism, personal control, and a sense of meaning are known to be protective of mental health. Are they protective of physical health as well? The authors present a program of research that has tested the implications of cognitive adaptation theory and research on positive illusions for the relation of positive beliefs to disease progression among men infected with HIV. The investigations have revealed that even unrealistically optimistic beliefs about the future may be health protective. The ability to find meaning in the experience is also associated with a less rapid course of illness. Taken together, the research suggests that psychological beliefs such as meaning, control, and optimism act as resources, which may not only preserve mental health in the context of traumatic or life-threatening events but be protective of physical health as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Treatment Beliefs Questionnaire (TBQ): An instrument to assess beliefs about children's mood disorders and concomitant treatment needs.

Parent and child beliefs about the child's mood disorder and need for treatment may affect the willingness of the patient and his or her family to participate in and adhere to treatment recommendations. Such beliefs may also affect mental health treatment outcomes. However, there is a paucity of research in this area, which is further reflected in a lack of assessment instruments. The present study describes the creation and initial psychometric evaluation of parent and child versions of the Treatment Beliefs Questionnaire (TBQ) in a sample of 8- to 11-year-old children with a primary mood disorder and comorbid psychiatric conditions. Preliminary results support the reliability and validity of these scales in this population. The role of health beliefs in mental health treatment adherence and treatment outcome is addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of young children's understanding of contradictory representations in pretense, memory, and belief

The present study examined the nature of young children's understanding of various mental representations. 3- and 4-year-olds were presented with story protagonists who held mental representations (beliefs, pretenses, and memories) that contradicted reality. Subjects chose 1 of 2 alternate "thought pictures" (depicting either the mental representation or reality) that reflected the mental state. While 4-year-olds performed relatively well on all scenario types, 3-year-olds chose the correct thought picture significantly more often for pretense and memory scenarios than for false belief scenarios. These results suggest that young children conceptualize pretense as involving mental representations, and that they have more difficulty understanding contradictory mental representations that purport to correspond to reality.     

Beliefs about mental illness as a functon of psychiatric status and psychiatric hospitalization.

Beliefs about mental illness were assessed among psychiatric inpatients at a VA hospital, the mental health staff responsible for their treatment, and a group of medical and surgical (control) patients. Results indicated that: (a) Psychiatric and nonpsychiatric patients generally hold similar opinions regarding mental illness. Severely disturbed psychiatric patients, however, view mental illness in more moralistic terms than do "normals." (b) Psychiatric hospitalization is generally accompanied by a change in the patient's beliefs concerning mental illness, toward those held by the staff. (c) Psychiatric patients whose beliefs about mental illness are most strikingly influenced by the staff tend to respond most favorably to treatment, as measured by length of hospital stay and gains in self-esteem during the 1st month of treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of attributional beliefs to memory strategy use in children and adolescents with mental retardation

Attributional beliefs of African American 11- and 17-year-old students with mental retardation were assessed with an open-ended interview and the Students' Perception of Control Questionnaire. Results from the questionnaire indicated that strategy ratings were intercorrelated as were capacity ratings. Yet, the constructs of strategy and capacity were differentiated by both age groups. Beliefs in the importance of internal strategies were positively related to recall and strategy use, and beliefs in the importance of external strategies were negatively related to memory strategy use and recall. Findings suggest that attributional beliefs vary among students with mental retardation and have the potential to either energize or inhibit achievement-related behavior.     

Effects of mindset on positive illusions.

S. E. Taylor and J. D. Brown's (1988) position that mentally healthy people exhibit positive illusions raises a dilemma: How do people function effectively if their perceptions are positively biased? Using P. M. Gollwitzer's deliberative-implemental mindset distinction, we assessed whether people in a deliberative mindset show less evidence of positive illusions than people in an implemental mindset. Participants completed a mindset task and assessments of mood, self-perceptions, and perceived (in)vulnerability to risk. Deliberation led to worsened mood, greater perceived risk, and poorer self-perceptions, relative to implementation; control (no mindset) participants typically scored in between. Study 3 demonstrated that the mindset manipulation corresponds to how people actually make decisions or implement them. Results suggest that people use relatively realistic thinking when setting goals and more positive thinking when implementing them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are any of our beliefs about ourselves non-inferential or infallible?

This paper has 4 objectives. First, to show that as a matter of empirical fact we have at least some non-inferential knowledge of our own mental states. In other words, that not all of our knowledge about our own minds is the result of inference or theory-construction. Second, to show that some of our beliefs about our own minds are infallible . Third, to show that any self-conscious creature must have at least some non-inferential knowledge of its own mental states. Finally, to show that any self-conscious creature must have at least some infallible beliefs about its own mental states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental contamination and mental correction: Unwanted influences on judgments and evaluations.

The authors define mental contamination as the process whereby a person has an unwanted response because of mental processing that is unconscious or uncontrollable. This type of bias is distinguishable from the failure to know or apply normative rules of inference and can be further divided into the unwanted consequences of automatic processing and source confusion, which is the confusion of 2 or more causes of a response. Mental contamination is difficult to avoid because it results from both fundamental properties of human cognition (e.g., a lack of awareness of mental processes) and faulty lay beliefs about the mind (e.g., incorrect theories about mental biases). People's lay beliefs determine the steps they take (or fail to take) to correct their judgments and thus are an important but neglected source of biased responses. Strategies for avoiding contamination, such as controlling one's exposure to biasing information, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantics and pragmatics of social influence: How affirmations and denials affect beliefs in referent propositions.

Ss read either affirmations or denials of target propositions that ostensibly came from either newspapers or reference volumes. Denials of the validity of a proposition that was already assumed to be false increased Ss' beliefs in this proposition. The effect generalized to beliefs in related propositions that could be used to support the target's validity. When denials came from a newspaper, their "boomerang effect" was nearly equal in magnitude to the direct effect of affirming the target proposition's validity. When Ss were asked explicitly to consider the implications of the assertions, however, the impact of denials was eliminated. Affirmations of a target proposition that was already assumed to be true also had a boomerang effect. Results have implications for the effects of both semantic and pragmatic processing of assertions on belief change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A randomized controlled trial of cognitive-behavioral treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder in severe mental illness.

A cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) program for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was developed to address its high prevalence in persons with severe mental illness receiving treatment at community mental health centers. CBT was compared with treatment as usual (TAU) in a randomized controlled trial with 108 clients with PTSD and either major mood disorder (85%) or schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (15%), of whom 25% also had borderline personality disorder. Eighty-one percent of clients assigned to CBT participated in the program. Intent-to-treat analyses showed that CBT clients improved significantly more than did clients in TAU at blinded posttreatment and 3- and 6-month follow-up assessments in PTSD symptoms, other symptoms, perceived health, negative trauma-related beliefs, knowledge about PTSD, and case manager working alliance. The effects of CBT on PTSD were strongest in clients with severe PTSD. Homework completion in CBT predicted greater reductions in symptoms. Changes in trauma-related beliefs in CBT mediated improvements in PTSD. The findings suggest that clients with severe mental illness and PTSD can benefit from CBT, despite severe symptoms, suicidal thinking, psychosis, and vulnerability to hospitalizations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More illusions.

Replies to comments by H. J. Eysenck, S. E. Taylor and J. D. Brown, and T. E. Joiner (see PA, Vols 5447; 5471; and 5454, respectively) on the argument by J. Schedler et al (see record 1994-09623-001) that standard mental health scales may not distinguish genuine from illusory mental health. Methodological issues (e.g., clinical judgment vs self-report measures) are addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental extrapolation and cognitive penetrability: Reply to Ranney and proposals for evaluative criteria.

We propose three criteria for establishing that mentally extrapolated motions are impenetrable with respect to one's knowledge, beliefs, or expectations about the nature of corresponding physical motions, and we review recent findings on mental extrapolation and representational momentum that appear to meet these criteria. We also respond to some arguments recently proposed by M. Ranney (see record 1990-09028-001) and T. L. Hubbard and J. J. Bharucha (see record 1989-14283-001) that representational momentum is cognitively penetrable. We conclude that mental extrapolations are governed to at least some extent by the inherent properties of the underlying internal mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recovered memories and social justice.

Responds to the article by L. S. Brown (see record 84-26142) regarding managed care and false memory movement issues in social justice-oriented psychology. While the current author agrees with Brown's advocacy for social justice in psychology, he expresses concern regarding Brown's seemingly dismissive discussion of memory recovery work in therapy. Lindsay contends that it is essential to separate reasonable concerns regarding introgenesis from popularized exaggerations and abuse of those concerns. Lindsay argues that there is compelling evidence that suggestive efforts to help clients recover memories of abuse which need not be coercive, have been used by a minority of therapists of both sexes in recent years, and there are grounds for concern about these approaches. Criticisms of suggestive memory-recovery work should not be exaggerative or misappropriated in ways that undermine support for victims of abuse, but the existence and risks of such approaches should not be minimized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

La CLAve to increase psychosis literacy of Spanish-speaking community residents and family caregivers.

The authors developed and tested a 35-min psychoeducational program with the goal of increasing Spanish-speaking persons’ literacy of psychosis. The program uses popular cultural icons derived from music, art, and videos, as well as a mnemonic device—La CLAve (The Clue)—to increase (a) knowledge of psychosis, (b) efficacy beliefs that one can identify psychosis in others, (c) attributions to mental illness, and (d) professional help-seeking. Assessments were conducted before and after administering the program to both community residents (n = 57) and family caregivers of persons with schizophrenia (n = 38). For community residents, the authors observed increases across the 4 domains of symptom knowledge, efficacy beliefs, illness attributions, and recommended help-seeking. For caregivers, increases were observed in symptom knowledge and efficacy beliefs. La CLAve is a conceptually informed psychoeducational tool with a developing empirical base aimed at helping Spanish-speaking Latinos with serious mental illness obtain care in a timely manner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)